Does Ron Cook read Stillers.com?

September 22, 2010 by Palmer Sucks

Does Ron Cook read Stillers.com ?

Does Ron Cook read Stillers.com?

�Sucks Says

Random Rants by PalmerSucks

September 21, 2010

A few weeks ago, I
wrote a piece about the bizarre and hypocritical behavior of Terry Bradshaw in
publicly trashing Ben Roethlisberger. One of the reasons I did was because I
couldn�t find a single sports-media type who had taken Bradshaw to task for
this garbage. I didn�t want to make a big deal out of it, so I included my
piece as a bonus addition to my post-game remarks put up on the site last week.

So imagine my
surprise when I saw last Sunday�s Post-Gazette which featured � of all things �
Ron Cook�s piece �Jealousy likely trigger for Bradshaw�s anti-Ben rant.� It
wasn�t so much that he�d written it � it was the timing of the article. After
all, it had been a full week since Bradshaw�s rant, on the FOX pre-game show
before the Stillers took on the Atlanta Falcons. If there was a time for
calling out, early last week would�ve been it. Instead, I heard nothing as the
week rolled by. The article left me wondering: why wait a whole week, and then
comment � on Sunday game day, no less?

I�ll leave you to
decide if there was any �inspiration� taking place here. If so, well, congrats
to Mr. Cook for showing such good taste. Really, I�m flattered. �And if he did just think of this
independently, then kudos to Ron for being the first mainstream sportswriter I
know of who called out Bradshaw for his nonsense. It�s long overdue.

It�s official: Chris Johnson is the Stillers� bitch.

Three times, I
believe, the Stillers have faced Johnson. �Twice before, they shut him down. This time,
however, they beat him down.

Quite simply, the
Stillers took Johnson�s heart. By halftime, he was sitting on the bench, muttering
to himself. By the third quarter, he was standing head down in the huddle,
looking ready to heave, McNabb style. By the end of the game, he was limping
off the field, no doubt ready to hit his favorite massage parlor for a
not-so-happy ending.

The Stiller D took
turns roughing him up, from Farrior to McFadden to Timmons. One play stands out
in my mind, on the Titans last TD drive. Johnson took a handoff, bolted left
and had acres of room to run. With his all-world speed, that should�ve been an
easy score. But something was missing -- and down went Johnson, courtesy of
Timmons�s knife-in tackle. I believe by then Johnson simply wanted no further
part of things, and took his game down a notch. Now that�s domination for you.

Recall I said last
week that the key to the Stillers season was Lawrence Timmons. �Now, I know most would say Troy Pola, but
remember � a healthy Troy and Aaron Smith put the Stillers D back to the form
it had at the end of the �08 season. �An
emerging Timmons to go with them makes it BETTER.

Troy made the splash
plays, but Timmons did the sinking. �I
don�t know which hit most hurt Johnson, but Timmons�s textbook-perfect blast
through CJ early on the in the game is as fine a candidate as any.

A few years ago, I
coveted a player by the name of Patrick Willis. Willis, I thought, would make
an ideal ILB on the Stillers� D. Up until this year, I
had wished the Stillers could�ve nabbed Willis with their first-round pick back
in �07. �Now, I don�t feel that way.
Timmons has convinced me he�s the player the Stillers were hoping for when they
drafted him.

Anyway, like I said
before, the Stiller D will have to carry the team til
Ben comes back. Besides being unproductive, the Stillers� O is simply painful
to watch. But unlike last week, I can�t blame the QB or even Bruce Arians for
this failure. Poor Dennis Dixon � with the musical chairs going on with the
O-line, he�s lucky not to have been knocked out of the game even earlier. And
poor Charlie Batch -- who looked like he was throwing Crisco footballs to his
receivers, so many passes did they drop.

But hey, why complain
when you�re sitting at 2-0 on top of the division? Are you surprised? I�m not.
Of course, the same can�t be said for the dumb sports media, who basically
handed the Ravens the division before the season started.

I can�t stress this
enough: never bet the house on a team led by �Average Joe� Flacco. Sunday Joe
was well below average, tossing a hatload of picks en route to a crushing loss to the Cincy Bungals. The fact is, Flacco did nothing week one
either, and the Ravens should be 0-2 right now.

But hey, unlike that
bad boy Ben, Flacco still sleeps on his mother�s couch and drinks a glass of
warm milk before bed. You still want to make that joke, Ravens fans? �How�s couch boy making you feel now? I bet
deep down you�d take the bad boy right now.

Much has been made of
Baltimore�s FA signings: did the Ravens miscalculate here? For all the hype
given to AnquanBoldin,
he�s not what the Ravens need most: a legit downfield threat. In Arizona he was
a stud, but as a possession receiver, with Larry Fitzgerald running most of the
deep routes. The signing of TJ Houshmandzadeh,
likewise, is nothing but a Xerox copy: they�re the same receiver.

But even if they
brought Lynn Swann and Jerry Rice out of retirement, it might not matter. Not
when you�ve got Average Joe to lead you to mediocrity. Just pray the Ravens
don�t wake up one day and remember they�ve got Marc Bulger
on the roster.

As for the other
competition, once again it�s Cleveland falling flat on its face, and Cincy squeaking out the win despite Carson Palmer�s own
quarterbacking impotence. Like I said, if the Stiller D is for real, this team
will be a nightmare to face once Roethlisberger returns.

Now on to Tampa, a
team I know so little about, I hate even to comment � almost. �I know they�ve lost most of their former
stars, and offhand I can�t even name their quarterback. You�d think this would
be an easy win, but now we�re hearing talk about �trap games.� Imagine that �
before the season we were all hoping for a 2-2 start at best. �Now, we�re talking trap games. Unbelievable.

Somehow, I think the
D will carry the team to another win.

(The views of PalmerSucks are pretty much those
of Stillers.com � and should be.)